Head Studies & a little more

I've recently purchased a new Moleskine, and a new type of ink pen for figure studies. I know that I want the sketchbook to have a theme, so I've decided to start looking at portraits, heads, and likenesses of the people I draw. I'm also considering moving away from nudes for a while to experiment with the clothed, and once again, "theme" model. Staged, theatrical, dynamic, storytelling figures are what I'm after now. I think this might have something to do with the Dr. Sketchy sessions I've been attending. They've been an extremely liberating move away from the static, academic (and sometimes anemic) poses we usually draw. Way back when, in graduate school, my thesis dealt with this kind of subject matter - operatic themes that tried to tell a story. I think that this might be worth exploring again. We'll see. Anyway, in the meantime, here's a few head studies I've done over the last couple of days. These are just experiments in getting some more expression back into my drawings. I hope you enjoy them.

-Ed

One more Dr. Sketchy Sketch

Here's one that I almost forgot from last week. I cleaned it up a bit in Photoshop, and changed it to have her holding a cigarette instead of a derringer. They posted it over at the Dr. Sketchy's blog, but I thought I'd throw it up here as well. Don't forget there's another one of these up for auction on Ebay this weekend.

Cheers,

Ed

One of my Dr. Sketchy Drawings is on Ebay!

I decided to put this drawing, which I did during this month's Dr. Sketchy's Session, up for bid this weekend. Stop by and check it out. You can click here, or go to the widget in the right hand column of this blog.

Thanks and All best, Ed

Children of the Recession

Pretty self-explanatory, but I will say that from what I've heard the graffiti artists are getting quite creative out in Baker County.

Local cartoon that "plays" nationally

It's not often that the entire media universe descends on your backyard. But that's exactly what happened last week with Tiger Wood's Players Club Mea Culpa. It'll be interesting to see what the turnout is at this year's Player's Club Championship without him.

First syndicate cartoon of the week

All I could picture in my mind after listening to the Sunday News shows.

More Dr. Sketchy's

This was probably my favorite sketch of the night - as much for what is not drawn as for what is actually drawn. I tried to keep it very loose and open and airy. The cigarette smoking in the ash tray was a last minute decision. I think this was a 20 minute pose. I'm so glad we've got one of these in Jacksonville now.

More to come as I scan them in, so stay tooned, and let me hear from you!

Happy Weekend,

Ed

Another syndicate cartoon

I was finished for the week, and then I decided I wanted some salmon for dinner Wednesday night. Woke up with 5 different ideas yesterday, here's the one I went with.

Happy weekend!

-Ed

Dr. Sketchy's was fun fun fun

Other than the thick blanket of cigarette smoke which irritated my eyes and sinuses to no end (and that's coming from an ex-smoker) it was a grand time - again. This was my second Dr. Sketchy's and I do plan to do more of them. I've only got one sketch scanned so far out of about a dozen. I'll post more as I drag 'em into Photoshop for touch-ups. Let me hear from you!

-Ed

Tuesday Night Sketch

I attended a short figure drawing sketch class last night at The Art Coop downtown. Turnout was a little, uh, slim. Only 5 people were drawing. The model didn't show either, so the organizer posed for us (she's done that before BTW, and she always keeps her Bridgette Jones drawers on). Anyway, I wanted to use an unforgiving media in preparation for tonight's Dr. Sketchy's, so I chose markers. Tombow markers are water based, so you can smear them a little, but once you put down a mark, it's pretty much there. The theme tonight from what I can gather is Noir, so I've been practicing with heavy shadows and graphic, sharp, pointy planes across the figures. Can't wait for tonight; it's soo much fun. I'll post those results in the morning. I'm also judging a local art show tomorrow afternoon. Busy, busy.

Let me hear from you!

-Ed

New syndicate cartoon

Here's my latest syndicate cartoon. We had a late figure drawing session last night; I'll post those results shortly. Also, we've got Dr. Sketchy's tonight, so look for the results of that tomorrow!

Cheers,

Ed

January's Figure Drawing Workshop: Reddi-arts Jax

I finished up a figure drawing workshop I was hosting here a few weeks ago, and was waiting for the attendees to send me their work before posting.

They're starting to trickle in now, so I decided it would be a good time tack up some results. This was a great class with 5 very talented students. Everyone seemed to get a lot out of the principles I was trying to impart. Some of these ideas were totally new to them.

I'm going to post a random sampling, in no particular order (gestures, negative space, line weight, straight & curved drawings, and planar studies). BTW, if you took the class, and you haven't already sent me your drawings, please do so and I'll put them up.
Also, I'll be hosting another one of these at the end of June/beginning of May, so if you're interested in joining, please call Jim at Reddi-arts for details.

Here's part of an email I just received from one of the attendees:

"it's been a great help looking at negative shapes, looking at gesture, structure, etc, in the beginning stages of laying out my drawings. One class period in particular, I switched from my old habits of formulating the basis for an image, and then switched over to some concepts from class, and I got MUCH farther in the drawing MUCH quicker. I'd have to say that the drawing was more accurate as well, and I took a conscious note of the negative spaces and their shapes. I haven't gotten bold enough to create a drawing with bleeds... BUT! My marks have been freeing up. Ever since your workshop, and looking at Enrique's drawings vs my illustrative/graphic ones, I've wondered about that phenomenon. How does one go about creating a drawing that looks like "a drawing" and not like "an illustration." It's an elusive thing to me, and not something I quite understand. I read through a lot of the Experimental Drawing book, and especially the parts about drawing lots of marks, erasing, drawing again, erasing, and really not caring about keeping things all tight and crisp. Result: "a drawing" of a skull. This just happened yesterday. (The drawing is on my big newsprint pad that stays at school, so I don't have a photograph to show.) However, old habits seem to die hard, so I'll need to continue reminding myself of these different approaches. Thank you again for the workshop."

Another first!

Pretty cool. Click here.

A gaggle of locals & roughs

Here's a batch of local cartoons that I did over the past two weeks; and I wasn't going to post them, but after reading several articles on a new emphasis on hyper-local journalism, I decided to share. Some of these are for weeklies and a couple are for upcoming monthlies.

I haven't posted many roughs lately, so I thought it might be cool to put some of those up as well. People seem to enjoy seeing where these start and finish. I skipped today's figure sketch class, so that I can focus on Wednesday's Dr. Sketchy's. Stay tooned for the results of that on Thursday. Let me hear from you! Cheers,

Ed

New drawing up for auction on Ebay

One of my favorite Savannah drawings from this past year. You can click on the widget in the right hand column of this blog, or click here.

Thanks in advance for bidding!

-Ed

New syndicate cartoon - sorry, it's about snow

I wanted to combine the topics of too much snow in the Northeast with the situation in Vancouver right now. Seems they're having an abnormally warm winter over there, and there's not enough snow accumulating to support the winter game events. Thanks El-nino!

Holy Lambada Batman!

Last week I decided to start using my DVD still studies for Batman illos. Unfortunately, the guy in the Dirty Dancing DVDs was not quite buff enough to pass for Batman. So my buddy Henry kind of off-handedly said, "why not make him Robin?" This has worked out much better. Thanks Henry! I'm pretty happy with most of these, and I picked the best one and added some color in Photoshop this morning. Enjoy, and let me hear from you.

Cheers,

Ed

Sunday Sketch (Part Deux)

Here's the rest of the sketches from yesterday's figure sketch class. I'll post everything, with the gestures & skeleton study first.

We also did a few 20 minute poses, one of which was a standing re-pose from one of the gestures. I think I like the last 45 minute reclining pose the best. I really wanted to challenge myself with a kind of awkward pose, so I chose something super foreshortened. Let me hear from you!

Cheers,

Ed